Hello Blog! I have not been paying as much attention to you as I should, because it turns out when these people say "study abroad," it turns out that the first word isn't just there for show (as I had been fervently hoping). As a result, I don't have much terrifically new to report. One totally cool thing is that, every year, Kyoto puts on basically a parade which is designed as a festival to honor the two Emperors Kammu and Komei that, respectively, made Kyoto the capital of Japan and moved the Capital away to Tokyo. Anyhow, so this parade consists of many, many volunteers from across Kyoto dressed up according to periods of history (Jidai), ostensibly to pay homage to the many periods of history these two enshrined emperors (they are also both deities and their sacred palanquins follow the procession) presided over the beginning and end of. The coolest part about this is that my host father is a participant (he gets to ride a HORSE!), and that the parade/festival basically is a 100% perfect example of the invented, tourist-ified history that I am taking a class on and that I am (basically) writing my BA thesis on also! My Professor in the class calls it "Kyotoland." I've talked about it before on here, even! Anyway, my host father lent me a promotional video (with language options of english/Japanese/Chinese (interesting in itself, also thaaank gooood, it would take me forever to figure out what was going on in only Japanese..)) that took greaat pains to assure the viewer this was 100% historically fact checked and absolutely true-to-life. When I told my professor this, he laughed it off. I'm on the fence; any time you make a costume down to the smallest details you are obviously reaching, but they have a Committee of Historical Accuracy. As a Presbyterian, I cannot help but trust a Committee.
Speaking of being a Presbyterian, it looks like (because cello rentals are fairly expensive and I would fail any audition anyway considering how out of practice I am by now) I am going to join my University's Handbell Choir. I have been getting crap for it from my classmates (their 'ad' in the clubs and circles booklet had an abundance of hearts in it, also every club had gender ratios and this one is 7:1) and even my host mom about it ("You know handbell choirs are mostly girls right?") but I maintain every handbell choir needs at least some big strong men like me to lift the big bells way down the scale. Don't worry, host mom! You won't have to put up with any late night shenanagins! I came to Japan to study, not have torrid handbell choir trysts. Also, as soon as the ladies in question hear me attempt to speak Japanese, any attempt of the torrid or trysty sort would fail immediately. "But!" you, the dear reader ask, "if you are here only to study, why join a handbell choir at all?" Well, my program requires we do something in the community to assure we are "involved in speaking with someone who is not interested in your education." Hooray!
Anyway blog, I think I am going to do some homework then head off to the Temple of the Weekend, Kiyomizudera, one of the most touristed of all! Probably have some pictures of it later, I dunno. Until next time, internet!
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Toooourist
This weekend, I got my tourist on, ohhh yeah. I own no Hawaiian shirts, but I was wearing one in spirit as I tramped around various ancient and not-so-ancient Places of Interest. Those in question this weekend were Nijo Castle and Enryakuji. Both were really built around the same time.. Enryakuji was founded in the 8th century, but Oda Nobunaga totally ruined the sweet thing they had going in the 1500s by razing it to the ground. It was rebuilt after that, as a bunch of monks had scampered off with the most holy/sweetest stuff, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi saw it as one of the things to do to re-establish a sense of 'peace and normalcy' after, you know, almost 200 years of incredibly destructive civil war.
After Hideyoshi's death, and a few more years that did not remotely approximate peace or normalcy, Tokugawa Ieyasu proved his sword was longest and set out to similarly rebuild and basically wave that big ol' sword around. A bunch of the buildings at Enryakuji were constructed by him or his successors, and he also build Nijo Castle to be his home-away-from-home when he was visiting the Emperor here in Kyoto (he had set up shop in Edo, which was later re-named Tokyo). As such, it's not really a CASTLE.. I mean, there's a moat, and walls, and gates, but the vast majority of space is garden, and all the buildings are decidedly more palacey than castley. There used to be a keep, but it never saw battle; it was built basically to tower over Kyoto and remind everyone that while the Emperor was technically a God and waved his hands around to keep heaven and earth in balance and whatever, it was the Tokugawa Shogun
who had the biggest 'sword' or 'castle tower' in the realm. The keep burned down in the mid 1700s, and as this was a pretty bad time financially to be a Samurai, they never rebuilt it. So. All that's left is two palaces and hella gardens, which initially disappointed me when I realized it.
I was un-disappointed when I actually saw them.. They are some sweeeeet palaces, lemme tell you. You couldn't take pictures inside, but it was really incredible. This is also the palace where Tokugawa, ever paranoid, included floorboards that make squeaking noises whenever any pressure is put on them. Having a million tourists walking around means that you hear mooore than enough evidence of this.. I cannot say enough how incredible the inside of that place is, though. There were painted screeens and carved wooden relieeeefs and colorful tiled cieeeelings and just every damn thing. Great! I also took basically the best picture ever on the gate over the inner moat:
Anyway yeah, I am SO GOOD. The next day, I went to Enryakuji! First, a short Kyoto Geography lesson: my host family's house is in the faar west of the city, and a little south. Enryakuji is on a mountain, (Hiei-zan), which is past the northeast reaches of the city. This means it took a little more than about two hours, all told, from my doorstep to the first sweet Buddhisty temple I could take a picture of and gawk at. I had to take: A commuter/electric train, the subway, walk 20 minutes, take another commuter train, a cable car, and a ropeway (you can apparently walk/hike the cable car/ropeway part, and it's supposedly really nice, but it takes 5 hours all by itself), then walk about 20 minutes to the temple itself over the mountain. The temple used to basically cover the whole thing, with over 3,000 buildings, but after that whole 'burned to the ground' thing it was only rebuilt back to about 300. You think at first, 'Jeez! 10 times less! And they have the cheek to still call themselves a temple! That's nothing more than a templet! A mini-temple!' and then you realize that's still 300 goddamn buildings. They're very spread out, too (clumped into three major areas, one is really far away and I got templed out after a few hours so I left it for next time), and spread out on a mountain means that there's a lot of distance to cover both horizontally and vertically. This led to me realizing yet another thing one must get used to in Japan: they have terrifying old people. I am climbing some stairs carved into the living rock of the mountain at about an 80 degree grade, sweating like a pig, struggling along, and this gang of obaa-sans (grandmas) with their floral print blouses and goofy fisherman's hats just MOTORS past me. Not even kidding. I mean it's been a while since I was on track, but have some pity, old Japanese ladies! Jeez. Anyway, there were some really great buildings there too, as well as some very old spiritual things. It is the head temple still of the Tendai sect, and many of the other Japanese flavors of Buddhism were founded by monks who studied there, so there's a little bit of everything around in addition to Tendai. For my BA, I think I'm going to have to translate all the signs around.. there were very many that were only in Japanese, though they had the Japanese-Korean-Chinese-English for the important explanations of what was an Official Cultural Artifact and so forth. Pretty cool, though!
That's all for now, Folks At Home! Don't worry, I won't be hanging up my metaphorical Hawaiian shirt any time soon, and you won't have to wait too terribly long for the next installment! Now I will go because I am at an internet cafe that charges by 15-minute intervals. Stay classy, America!
After Hideyoshi's death, and a few more years that did not remotely approximate peace or normalcy, Tokugawa Ieyasu proved his sword was longest and set out to similarly rebuild and basically wave that big ol' sword around. A bunch of the buildings at Enryakuji were constructed by him or his successors, and he also build Nijo Castle to be his home-away-from-home when he was visiting the Emperor here in Kyoto (he had set up shop in Edo, which was later re-named Tokyo). As such, it's not really a CASTLE.. I mean, there's a moat, and walls, and gates, but the vast majority of space is garden, and all the buildings are decidedly more palacey than castley. There used to be a keep, but it never saw battle; it was built basically to tower over Kyoto and remind everyone that while the Emperor was technically a God and waved his hands around to keep heaven and earth in balance and whatever, it was the Tokugawa Shogun
who had the biggest 'sword' or 'castle tower' in the realm. The keep burned down in the mid 1700s, and as this was a pretty bad time financially to be a Samurai, they never rebuilt it. So. All that's left is two palaces and hella gardens, which initially disappointed me when I realized it.
I was un-disappointed when I actually saw them.. They are some sweeeeet palaces, lemme tell you. You couldn't take pictures inside, but it was really incredible. This is also the palace where Tokugawa, ever paranoid, included floorboards that make squeaking noises whenever any pressure is put on them. Having a million tourists walking around means that you hear mooore than enough evidence of this.. I cannot say enough how incredible the inside of that place is, though. There were painted screeens and carved wooden relieeeefs and colorful tiled cieeeelings and just every damn thing. Great! I also took basically the best picture ever on the gate over the inner moat:
Anyway yeah, I am SO GOOD. The next day, I went to Enryakuji! First, a short Kyoto Geography lesson: my host family's house is in the faar west of the city, and a little south. Enryakuji is on a mountain, (Hiei-zan), which is past the northeast reaches of the city. This means it took a little more than about two hours, all told, from my doorstep to the first sweet Buddhisty temple I could take a picture of and gawk at. I had to take: A commuter/electric train, the subway, walk 20 minutes, take another commuter train, a cable car, and a ropeway (you can apparently walk/hike the cable car/ropeway part, and it's supposedly really nice, but it takes 5 hours all by itself), then walk about 20 minutes to the temple itself over the mountain. The temple used to basically cover the whole thing, with over 3,000 buildings, but after that whole 'burned to the ground' thing it was only rebuilt back to about 300. You think at first, 'Jeez! 10 times less! And they have the cheek to still call themselves a temple! That's nothing more than a templet! A mini-temple!' and then you realize that's still 300 goddamn buildings. They're very spread out, too (clumped into three major areas, one is really far away and I got templed out after a few hours so I left it for next time), and spread out on a mountain means that there's a lot of distance to cover both horizontally and vertically. This led to me realizing yet another thing one must get used to in Japan: they have terrifying old people. I am climbing some stairs carved into the living rock of the mountain at about an 80 degree grade, sweating like a pig, struggling along, and this gang of obaa-sans (grandmas) with their floral print blouses and goofy fisherman's hats just MOTORS past me. Not even kidding. I mean it's been a while since I was on track, but have some pity, old Japanese ladies! Jeez. Anyway, there were some really great buildings there too, as well as some very old spiritual things. It is the head temple still of the Tendai sect, and many of the other Japanese flavors of Buddhism were founded by monks who studied there, so there's a little bit of everything around in addition to Tendai. For my BA, I think I'm going to have to translate all the signs around.. there were very many that were only in Japanese, though they had the Japanese-Korean-Chinese-English for the important explanations of what was an Official Cultural Artifact and so forth. Pretty cool, though!
That's all for now, Folks At Home! Don't worry, I won't be hanging up my metaphorical Hawaiian shirt any time soon, and you won't have to wait too terribly long for the next installment! Now I will go because I am at an internet cafe that charges by 15-minute intervals. Stay classy, America!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Fourth!
Fun fact: This is the first post I am writing directly into the web window, instead of into a notepad, because I'm doing it after our architecture class was canceled for a meeting about summer internships at UBS (sucks). Speaking of classes, they are going well. I have learned that 1) the Japanese program at my school is really good 2) I am still terrible compared to everyone else here, because I did not spend the time I should have on Japanese at home. We are really moving here, though, and there are few enough distractions that I'm actually going along- a good thing. I am getting used to the little differences, and my knees are slowly but surely becoming more flexible (thank god). We've also had some pretty fun adventures.
My favorite so far has been an excursion to a neighborhood north of where my host family lives, Arashiyama (嵐山)(wikipedia page!). We didn't go to the monkey park, but we nabbed some delicious noodles and visited the big temple in that region, tenryuji. One of the most interesting things is, as the temple has burned down multiple times (as a side note, this is true of almost everything in Japan. This never stops the Japanese), what the signage and pamphlet really emphasize is the fact that there remains a pond there whose relation to the nearby mountains was decided by one the original head monk of the temple in the 1400s. It was a pretty nice pond, and it had some huuuuge koi in it. The gardens around it were also spectacular. It was an extra 300 yen to get into the temple itself, so we gave that a pass and headed out the back gate. After wandering through the bamboo grove that's on the wikipedia page (bamboo is pretty much the coolest plant ever- touching it is a bizarre experience.. They're also reeeaaally taaaall), we found ourselves at another pond and a little shrine. Next to the shrine was a drainage ditch from higher up a hill. My two friends declared, as there was nothing stopping them, they should climb the ditch. I said 'no, that is silly and they will laugh at us, we should go look at that shrine, I will wait here.' So I waited, and eventually they called me from the top, saying it led to a path, so I climbed the ditch, people laughed at us, but then we followed the path up a mountain! It was pretty cool. That's where the picture at the top comes from. All in all, a pretty good weekend. Next weekend: Hieizan! Another mountain, another temple, but this time the temple is on top of the mountain, and you go up on a cable car instead of walking. Until then, homewooooork.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Three!
Well there's some more homework for me to do/avoid, so it's time to write some more things for the internet to read and admire! Today we will be covering the two most awkward portions of my daily life: TRAINS IN JAPAN (kyoto), and SQUAT TOILET. One is about as uncomfortable as the other, so we'll start with trains!
To get to school, I have to take a semi-suburban above-ground-to-elevated-to-subway train (or really, I have to take two of them but it's the same line), and then transfer to a real subway the rest of the way. As a result, even in just a week I've ridden on a whole bunch of different trains and stood on a whole bunch of platforms with a WHOLE BUNCH of Japanese commuters. So, right-off-the-bat-differences with the American trains I know (New York and Chicago): They are much, much cleaner, but then, so is Japan in general. They are much less stigmatized- 80% of the people on the train have suits. This means there are about 4 people in any 2-foot-square area with suits. What's that you say? My numbers are wrong? That's not possible? Welcome to Japan. Much has been made of this elsewhere, but I have seen (and felt) my very own self that there are people who work at the stations whose job is to shove everyone into the train so the doors close. They wear uniforms, complete with hat and gloves, and they shove you right on in there. You don't have to deal with the embarassment of asking them to move or nothing, you are just carried right along with the horrible crush of humanity right into the train. Be this as it may, this is also carried out in an incredibly orderly fashion- no-one complains, tries to muscle out more than their fair share of space, or anything. It's all eyes straight ahead, hold your breath and think of England (or Japan I guess). Crazy stuff! Also crazy: on all the platforms, there is some indication of where the doors of the train will be when it arrives. There are even different signs for the 3-door and 2-door cars! This allows people to neatly queue up in front of where their door will actually be, meaning that looking down the platform when you first reach it, you can find the shortest line and thus most equally distribute the massive number of people trying to get on the train. Everyone lines up in two neat lines which part when the doors open, allowing the people exiting the train to pass through the Gauntlet of Impatience (something which does not happen in America- straight-up free for all) as quickly as possible. Which they do! Have you ever seen a woman flat-out sprint up a flight of stairs while wearing heels that could easily pierce your skull? I do EVERY MORNING. I have been at many a baseball practice where there was considerably less hustle than the most relaxed Japanese train station I have been to. I have seen 70 year old men take escalator stairs two at a time, only to get to the platform of their next transfer and patiently stand in line in front of the '2 doa shyaryou (two door train car)' sign for 10 minutes. It's amazing! On the other end of the age spectrum, there are also an incredible number of incredibly young children taking public transport. There are apparently no school buses in Japan (Kyoto, anyway), so children of all ages from elementary up must take the train or bike if they live far from school. They do this alone. It's totally baffling- I know I was not allowed to ride public transit alone until well into high school (at which point I did once manage to totally mess up, hilariously). I done said it, Japanese children are more competent at age 10 than I was at 18. It boggles the mind. Payment also makes more sense, as whether going by train or bus you are charged based on how far you go, meaning that you don't feel like quite such an idiot taking one for one or two stops.
Despite all of these examples why Japanese public transit is in every way better than Chicago's, I still prefer the latter because I am neither squished or stared at by old ladies and children alike.
Speaking of staring, the toilet in my host family's home is not western style. When I was first being shown around, my host mom said (in J of course) 'Well, Japanese toilets are a little.. strange.. do your best!' I am doing my best, and lemme tell ya, I think one of the reasons those 70 year olds can still spring up elevators is that you have to get a workout and stretch just to get your business done in the mornin' with these things. That's all I'ma gonna say about that.
So yeah! Kyoto is very nice, but very crazy. Hopefully by next time I'll have visited some temples and stuff! Maybe get some pictures up in hurr. Dunno.
To get to school, I have to take a semi-suburban above-ground-to-elevated-to-subway train (or really, I have to take two of them but it's the same line), and then transfer to a real subway the rest of the way. As a result, even in just a week I've ridden on a whole bunch of different trains and stood on a whole bunch of platforms with a WHOLE BUNCH of Japanese commuters. So, right-off-the-bat-differences with the American trains I know (New York and Chicago): They are much, much cleaner, but then, so is Japan in general. They are much less stigmatized- 80% of the people on the train have suits. This means there are about 4 people in any 2-foot-square area with suits. What's that you say? My numbers are wrong? That's not possible? Welcome to Japan. Much has been made of this elsewhere, but I have seen (and felt) my very own self that there are people who work at the stations whose job is to shove everyone into the train so the doors close. They wear uniforms, complete with hat and gloves, and they shove you right on in there. You don't have to deal with the embarassment of asking them to move or nothing, you are just carried right along with the horrible crush of humanity right into the train. Be this as it may, this is also carried out in an incredibly orderly fashion- no-one complains, tries to muscle out more than their fair share of space, or anything. It's all eyes straight ahead, hold your breath and think of England (or Japan I guess). Crazy stuff! Also crazy: on all the platforms, there is some indication of where the doors of the train will be when it arrives. There are even different signs for the 3-door and 2-door cars! This allows people to neatly queue up in front of where their door will actually be, meaning that looking down the platform when you first reach it, you can find the shortest line and thus most equally distribute the massive number of people trying to get on the train. Everyone lines up in two neat lines which part when the doors open, allowing the people exiting the train to pass through the Gauntlet of Impatience (something which does not happen in America- straight-up free for all) as quickly as possible. Which they do! Have you ever seen a woman flat-out sprint up a flight of stairs while wearing heels that could easily pierce your skull? I do EVERY MORNING. I have been at many a baseball practice where there was considerably less hustle than the most relaxed Japanese train station I have been to. I have seen 70 year old men take escalator stairs two at a time, only to get to the platform of their next transfer and patiently stand in line in front of the '2 doa shyaryou (two door train car)' sign for 10 minutes. It's amazing! On the other end of the age spectrum, there are also an incredible number of incredibly young children taking public transport. There are apparently no school buses in Japan (Kyoto, anyway), so children of all ages from elementary up must take the train or bike if they live far from school. They do this alone. It's totally baffling- I know I was not allowed to ride public transit alone until well into high school (at which point I did once manage to totally mess up, hilariously). I done said it, Japanese children are more competent at age 10 than I was at 18. It boggles the mind. Payment also makes more sense, as whether going by train or bus you are charged based on how far you go, meaning that you don't feel like quite such an idiot taking one for one or two stops.
Despite all of these examples why Japanese public transit is in every way better than Chicago's, I still prefer the latter because I am neither squished or stared at by old ladies and children alike.
Speaking of staring, the toilet in my host family's home is not western style. When I was first being shown around, my host mom said (in J of course) 'Well, Japanese toilets are a little.. strange.. do your best!' I am doing my best, and lemme tell ya, I think one of the reasons those 70 year olds can still spring up elevators is that you have to get a workout and stretch just to get your business done in the mornin' with these things. That's all I'ma gonna say about that.
So yeah! Kyoto is very nice, but very crazy. Hopefully by next time I'll have visited some temples and stuff! Maybe get some pictures up in hurr. Dunno.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Second
Since arriving in Japan and experiencing the joys of orientation, icebreakers, et cetera, I moved into the home of the kind people that are allowing me to be their awkward, semi-deaf-mute, white son for the year. As the director of the program loves to say, 'when people come to Kyoto (especially foreigners), they expect to be immediately greeted by machi-ya, geisha, and a big pile of temples. When they get off a perfectly modern train and are faced with perfectly modern apartments, offices, and Lawson convenience stores, they feel somehow shortchanged. So, while I will doubtless visit many temples, shrines, and a castle or two, most will be 'life in Japan' stuff. I have no doubt every city is unique- Japan is, as it turns out, a pretty big country with a lot of people, and there's a whole lot of variation. However, as someone who has never left the US, things like 'oh my god there is a porcelain basin in the floor with a hood on one end, what wrong turn did I take when I meant to go to the bathroom' are what I am like to notice. Maybe I'll ascribe Kyoto things as Japan things.. such is life. As a (there is no non-pretentious way to say this.. I started with 'a student of history' and nearly vomited in my mouth) history major, and one that is caught up in the current trend for "invented tradition" (hell, one of the classes I'm taking is straight up about invented "historical-ness" in Kyoto today), I have a concern for properly classifying things. On the other hand, I am an American wondering why the remote control for the air conditioner exists, first off, and then, why it has about as many buttons as the remote control for the television.
I know many, many blogs exist about 'life in Japan' (the venn diagram of people likely to blog and people likely to do a JET programme or otherwise live in Japan is a circle). Many are probably based in Kyoto! I don't know and I don't care. This is for my friends, not for the internet, and the latter can collectively suck it.
So anyway, home. My host parents are extremely kind, and bear my attempts at speaking their language with (so far) unflagging patience. I am apparently their 21st homestay student (the mantle is covered with framed pictures of my predecessors), so they have had practice. Japanese food has defied my expectations- for one thing, everyone seemed convinced I would be losing some weight here on tiny Japanese portions. It seems that my host mother has anticipated my giant foreigner appitite, and has been preparing food accordingly. In order to not seem rude, I have eaten it all.. at times, a struggle. She has also tried to make me feel at home- one night, we had corn soup- as far as I could tell, corn boiled (maybe blendered first) until it was soup. She asked me if it was like we had at home, which I cauld not answer. Hell, maybe I don't know my own country (my mother (as a note- mother means my real mother, homestay mother will always be distinguished as such or as 'Japan-mom') informs me that native americans made corn soup, but that hardly counts), and somewhere in the south they eat it with every meal. She's still making the very mistake I excuse myself for by assuming that all America eats and lives the same way, though. Also, either way, it tasted very good and was paired with more Japanese-y but no less delicious dishes. In double addition, I might be assuming 'she's trying to make me feel at home' when in reality these are just things that the Japanese people have adopted and made their own. For instance, bread for breakfast is a staple all of my other friends in homestays have reported they recieved at least once. It is usually toasted, but sliced extremely thick- almost an inch. Strange! Some days the more traditional route is taken, rice and miso soup. These two things also make an appearance at almost every meal- rice is a huge thing for the Japanese (miso is extremely common, but I haven't heard it have the same cultural, almost religious importance given to it). I read a paper in civ class about how this was constructed in the meiji period, and so calling Japan a 'rice country' is silly (written by a Japanese scholar). Be that as it may, constructed or no, the Japanese today place tremendous importance on rice. One of my friends was told "A single grain of rice can create 80 grains, so every grain you leave uneaten in your bowl is 80 grains wasted." Though, again regarding invented tradition, it's not like the Scottish don't go crazy about kilts, which were invented in the 1700s by an Englishman.
In other foods we have eaten, I was taught for the first time how to eat non-yaki soba. I was a little confused when presented with a plate of totally plain soba fresh from the boiling water.. I knew that the cuisine I was looking forward to was more subtle than the Bold American Flavors I am accustomed to, but this was a little much, I thought. It turns out I was right; the trick is to fill a short cup with soy sauce, spring onions, wasabi, and other things I couldn't identify. You take a mouthful of soba noodles at a time, drop them in the cup, then fish out the now perfectly flavored noodles and eat them immediately. An interesting solution to the sauce soaking into the noodles too much and making them soggy and overly flavored, not so much a problem with tomato-based sauces but an omnipresent danger when using soy sauce. How cool!
Anyway, check back whenever for more tales about 'whatever I think is interesting when I am putting off my homework!'
I know many, many blogs exist about 'life in Japan' (the venn diagram of people likely to blog and people likely to do a JET programme or otherwise live in Japan is a circle). Many are probably based in Kyoto! I don't know and I don't care. This is for my friends, not for the internet, and the latter can collectively suck it.
So anyway, home. My host parents are extremely kind, and bear my attempts at speaking their language with (so far) unflagging patience. I am apparently their 21st homestay student (the mantle is covered with framed pictures of my predecessors), so they have had practice. Japanese food has defied my expectations- for one thing, everyone seemed convinced I would be losing some weight here on tiny Japanese portions. It seems that my host mother has anticipated my giant foreigner appitite, and has been preparing food accordingly. In order to not seem rude, I have eaten it all.. at times, a struggle. She has also tried to make me feel at home- one night, we had corn soup- as far as I could tell, corn boiled (maybe blendered first) until it was soup. She asked me if it was like we had at home, which I cauld not answer. Hell, maybe I don't know my own country (my mother (as a note- mother means my real mother, homestay mother will always be distinguished as such or as 'Japan-mom') informs me that native americans made corn soup, but that hardly counts), and somewhere in the south they eat it with every meal. She's still making the very mistake I excuse myself for by assuming that all America eats and lives the same way, though. Also, either way, it tasted very good and was paired with more Japanese-y but no less delicious dishes. In double addition, I might be assuming 'she's trying to make me feel at home' when in reality these are just things that the Japanese people have adopted and made their own. For instance, bread for breakfast is a staple all of my other friends in homestays have reported they recieved at least once. It is usually toasted, but sliced extremely thick- almost an inch. Strange! Some days the more traditional route is taken, rice and miso soup. These two things also make an appearance at almost every meal- rice is a huge thing for the Japanese (miso is extremely common, but I haven't heard it have the same cultural, almost religious importance given to it). I read a paper in civ class about how this was constructed in the meiji period, and so calling Japan a 'rice country' is silly (written by a Japanese scholar). Be that as it may, constructed or no, the Japanese today place tremendous importance on rice. One of my friends was told "A single grain of rice can create 80 grains, so every grain you leave uneaten in your bowl is 80 grains wasted." Though, again regarding invented tradition, it's not like the Scottish don't go crazy about kilts, which were invented in the 1700s by an Englishman.
In other foods we have eaten, I was taught for the first time how to eat non-yaki soba. I was a little confused when presented with a plate of totally plain soba fresh from the boiling water.. I knew that the cuisine I was looking forward to was more subtle than the Bold American Flavors I am accustomed to, but this was a little much, I thought. It turns out I was right; the trick is to fill a short cup with soy sauce, spring onions, wasabi, and other things I couldn't identify. You take a mouthful of soba noodles at a time, drop them in the cup, then fish out the now perfectly flavored noodles and eat them immediately. An interesting solution to the sauce soaking into the noodles too much and making them soggy and overly flavored, not so much a problem with tomato-based sauces but an omnipresent danger when using soy sauce. How cool!
Anyway, check back whenever for more tales about 'whatever I think is interesting when I am putting off my homework!'
Monday, September 7, 2009
First Post from Japan! Travel!
So I'm past security in O'Hare. Everyone asks 'how was your trip' when you get places, but despite being miserable 98% of the time, you will invariably say 'oh ok you know.' Thus, I am going to document EVERY MISERABLE STEP OF THE WAY on the internet. Even though I'm going actually put it on the internet only after I have arrived and found some kind of internet. Sitting in the gate area, my first thought is that my plane is extremely large. I have only ever flown domestic flights, and I thought I been on some big planes, but I guess I've never actually been on a 747. It'll feel cramped as hell inside, and cramped as double hell after 14 HOURS inside, but from here it is terrifying to consider this will carry me directly from Chicago, the middle of North America, past "the farthest West I've ever been (Darwin, MN)" in about two hours, and then to Tokyo. For two hours there I will try to figure out how to move my luggage, then get on a domestic Japanese flight (terrifying!) to Itami, then my reserved shuttle bus driver will be standing with a placard! That is the plan. I sure hope everything goes according to plan.
Everything went according to plan! Except the writing about it part. The 747 was huuuuuuge inside, which made the flight itself much more bearable than I thought it would be. It made takeoff and landing a thousand times scarier, though. As far as the ride itself goes, it was long. Long. The plane had screens in every seat, so I watched night at the museum 2 (now with 100% more terrible writing, acting, cinematography, and effects (also, the video stream was subbed (into Japanese), but if you changed language to also be Japanese you got to notice they dubbed and subbed it with different scripts or something), a Japanese movie ("Midsummer Orion" I think) about a Japanese submarine in World War Two and the Americans that sought to destroy it (in the end it had a (I'm not being sarcastic, I teared up) very touching ending about how we are all really human). There was also X-men Origins, or "Watching immortal people fight is fun and interesting!" It also had a stupid twist at the end. Adamantium bullets, as long as they missed Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, would just go right through him, and he would heal the hole. As demonstrated when he touches his claws together, it just bounces off itself at isn't harmed when it strikes other adamantium. The idea that the bullets also did no harm other than amnesia, and the very fact that they USED amnesia.. give me a break. There was also a History channel-esque show (it repeated every 30 minutes) about a battle that Oda Nobunaga was in, but there were no subtitles (I would have been happy with ones in Japanese!) and the narrator was very hard to hear, even with the volume turned way up. There were also other American movies I couldn't care about. The thing had games too! Horrible, incredibly slow ports of very simple ones. Space invaders was my favorite, but the poor little computer in the screen went too slow (and reacted too slowly) for tetris to be anything but frustrating. It still beat me at chess, though. The high point of the flight was when, needing to use the bathroom, I motioned to my aged Japanese rowmate that I needed to get out. He opted for the 'still sitting leg swivel,' which given the incredibly limited space was probably not the best. I went for it, though, and in the horrible process the crotch of my pants got caught on his screen and ripped (not very much, just about an inch or so right next to the bottom of the seam for the fly, but probably noticable). Thus, I entered Japan with my bag held in front of me, in order to cover this embarassing fact. The food! Was better than I expected, but I expected it to be AWFUL so there you are. Fairly unremarkable. I dunno what else to say. It was long.
UPON arriving and passing through immigration (they spent longer explaining the procedures to us on the plane than it took to actually do them), picking up my luggage (why oh why did I say 'screw rolly bags! A giant duffel bag is the way to go!'), and re-checking in, I was directed to the gate for my domestic flight. The security thought I was an idiot for trying to take my shoes off.. and then, feeling like an idiot, I saw my gate for the domestic flight: A ticket machine in front of a glass sliding door, clearly leading to a parking lot with empty baggage containers in it, completely enclosed by buildings save a single access road. Now it seems obvious that this means a bus would pick us up after we had our tickets taken and take us to the plane, out on the runway beyond the terminal. After 17 hours of travel, though, this seemed like a trick. The bus arrived, though, and despite my fervent belief it would sprout wings and fly us to Kyoto, this did not happen.
Itami is a much smaller airport, and we went on a much smaller plane. The flight was, similarly, much shorter, though, and I was tired enough to sleep through most of it (we went over Osaka right at sunset, though, which was very pretty. It's a biig city (We hadn't seen Tokyo because it was very cloudy, and Narita is apparently very far from the city itself). Not as big as New York, but hey, not much is. As planned, there was a man waiting with my name on a piece of paper, but to get to him I had to cross in front of a Kendo team triumphantly returning from something (they were clapping as I came into the arrivals area.. very awkward...). I impressed the driver enough with my stammered and broken Japanese enough that he asked for my money in '- sen en' instead of thousands like he asked another foreigner taking the same shuttle, so that made me feel good. Then we drove for a bit, then we got to the hotel! I learned on this trip: 1) Travelling for 23 hours makes you tired 2) many Kyoto streets are very very narrow 3) cars and bicycles alike barrel along down these narrow streets at very high speeds, and it is terrifying, especially when you are tired. Then we got to the orientation hotel! All went according to plan. I then slept.
Everything went according to plan! Except the writing about it part. The 747 was huuuuuuge inside, which made the flight itself much more bearable than I thought it would be. It made takeoff and landing a thousand times scarier, though. As far as the ride itself goes, it was long. Long. The plane had screens in every seat, so I watched night at the museum 2 (now with 100% more terrible writing, acting, cinematography, and effects (also, the video stream was subbed (into Japanese), but if you changed language to also be Japanese you got to notice they dubbed and subbed it with different scripts or something), a Japanese movie ("Midsummer Orion" I think) about a Japanese submarine in World War Two and the Americans that sought to destroy it (in the end it had a (I'm not being sarcastic, I teared up) very touching ending about how we are all really human). There was also X-men Origins, or "Watching immortal people fight is fun and interesting!" It also had a stupid twist at the end. Adamantium bullets, as long as they missed Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, would just go right through him, and he would heal the hole. As demonstrated when he touches his claws together, it just bounces off itself at isn't harmed when it strikes other adamantium. The idea that the bullets also did no harm other than amnesia, and the very fact that they USED amnesia.. give me a break. There was also a History channel-esque show (it repeated every 30 minutes) about a battle that Oda Nobunaga was in, but there were no subtitles (I would have been happy with ones in Japanese!) and the narrator was very hard to hear, even with the volume turned way up. There were also other American movies I couldn't care about. The thing had games too! Horrible, incredibly slow ports of very simple ones. Space invaders was my favorite, but the poor little computer in the screen went too slow (and reacted too slowly) for tetris to be anything but frustrating. It still beat me at chess, though. The high point of the flight was when, needing to use the bathroom, I motioned to my aged Japanese rowmate that I needed to get out. He opted for the 'still sitting leg swivel,' which given the incredibly limited space was probably not the best. I went for it, though, and in the horrible process the crotch of my pants got caught on his screen and ripped (not very much, just about an inch or so right next to the bottom of the seam for the fly, but probably noticable). Thus, I entered Japan with my bag held in front of me, in order to cover this embarassing fact. The food! Was better than I expected, but I expected it to be AWFUL so there you are. Fairly unremarkable. I dunno what else to say. It was long.
UPON arriving and passing through immigration (they spent longer explaining the procedures to us on the plane than it took to actually do them), picking up my luggage (why oh why did I say 'screw rolly bags! A giant duffel bag is the way to go!'), and re-checking in, I was directed to the gate for my domestic flight. The security thought I was an idiot for trying to take my shoes off.. and then, feeling like an idiot, I saw my gate for the domestic flight: A ticket machine in front of a glass sliding door, clearly leading to a parking lot with empty baggage containers in it, completely enclosed by buildings save a single access road. Now it seems obvious that this means a bus would pick us up after we had our tickets taken and take us to the plane, out on the runway beyond the terminal. After 17 hours of travel, though, this seemed like a trick. The bus arrived, though, and despite my fervent belief it would sprout wings and fly us to Kyoto, this did not happen.
Itami is a much smaller airport, and we went on a much smaller plane. The flight was, similarly, much shorter, though, and I was tired enough to sleep through most of it (we went over Osaka right at sunset, though, which was very pretty. It's a biig city (We hadn't seen Tokyo because it was very cloudy, and Narita is apparently very far from the city itself). Not as big as New York, but hey, not much is. As planned, there was a man waiting with my name on a piece of paper, but to get to him I had to cross in front of a Kendo team triumphantly returning from something (they were clapping as I came into the arrivals area.. very awkward...). I impressed the driver enough with my stammered and broken Japanese enough that he asked for my money in '- sen en' instead of thousands like he asked another foreigner taking the same shuttle, so that made me feel good. Then we drove for a bit, then we got to the hotel! I learned on this trip: 1) Travelling for 23 hours makes you tired 2) many Kyoto streets are very very narrow 3) cars and bicycles alike barrel along down these narrow streets at very high speeds, and it is terrifying, especially when you are tired. Then we got to the orientation hotel! All went according to plan. I then slept.
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